TY - JOUR AB - View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide MARS April marked some milestones for the exploration of Mars: the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars orbiter sent back its first pictures of Mars from a near-circular 400 km-altitude orbit, while NASA and ESA signed an agreement to work together to explore the possibilities for returning martian samples to Earth. ESA's director of human and robotic exploration, David Parker, and NASA's associate administrator for the science mission directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, signed the statement of intent on 26 April at the ILA Berlin Air Show. Sample-return from Mars is a complex undertaking, not only in sample selection, as Mark Sephton outlined in the February 2018 issue (A&G 2018 59 1.36), but also in the coordination of three spacecraft, two landings and a launch from Mars. One element is already in place: NASA's 2020 Mars rover will collect and store samples in preparation for a possible future mission to collect them. In a sign of the potential for collaboration, the ExoMars orbiter has already transmitted data from NASA's Curiosity rover back to Earth, adding to the martian communications infrastructure. A prime role of this orbiter, however, is to investigate the atmospheric composition of Mars, its methane in particular. The Trace Gas Orbiter's Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, took this spectacular image of Korolev crater, at high northern latitudes. “We were really pleased to see how good this picture was, given the lighting conditions,” said Antoine Pommerol, a member of the CaSSIS team working on the calibration of the data. “It shows that CaSSIS can make a major contribution to studies of the carbon dioxide and water cycles on Mars.” TGO also carries two spectrometer suites and a neutron detector. In this orientation, north is off-centre to the upper left. (ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS) http://bit.ly/2dOD8EO © 2018 Royal Astronomical Society TI - ExoMars goes to work, sample-return takes step forward JF - Astronomy & Geophysics DO - 10.1093/astrogeo/aty103 DA - 2018-06-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/exomars-goes-to-work-sample-return-takes-step-forward-KiO2EHiN6z SP - 1 EP - 5 VL - Advance Article IS - 3 DP - DeepDyve ER -